VT Thomas

Toms

(6 June 1929 – 28 April 2016, India)

VT Thomas, known as Toms, was a Kerala cartoonist, well-known in India for his long-running comic series 'Bobanum Moliyum'. Toms started his career in 1950 in the Catholic weekly Sathyadeepam and Kerala Kaumudi. He joined the newspaper Malayala Manorama in 1955, and remained affiliated with it as an editor until his retirement in 1987. In 1962, he introduced his weekly strip with the characters Boban and Molly in this paper. The characters were based on the naughty next-door siblings from the author's neighborhood in Kuttanad. The stories varied from childish adventures and pranks to socio-political satires.

Following his retirement from Malayala Manorama, Thomas and the paper got into a legal battle over the rights. The author got the rights over the characters, while the paper kept ownership over the strips that were drawn during his employment. The comic was eventually continued in the magazine Kalakaumudi. The strip has become a household name in Kerala, and was also turned into a film by Sasikumar in 1971 and an animation series by A.K. Saiber in 2006.